Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Wordless Wednesday: Flashback!


Hard to believe that one year ago, my now walking, talking toddler had only just begun to crawl.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Wordless Wednesday: Beach Feet

This mama wishes her tired toesies had spent the day in the sand (like last week) instead of shoved in four inch heels (like today). I promise to cough out a real update soon, if I survive this week (surely death by 8th graders is not that unheard of!)

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Lightning Striking Again

And again and again and a--okay, you get the point. Did anyone in the Chicagoland area get much sleep last night? Because we sure didn't! The storm(s) started durng Luke's bedtime. I caught flashes of lightning through the window as I was nursing him, but I had no idea that the storm would continue ALL NIGHT LONG.

Thankfully, we did not have any tornado activity and extra thankfully, we did not lose power, but it was still nasty. I slept periodically, constantly awakened by loud claps of thunder. Our bed is against an outside wall of the house, so every now and then, the thunder would be so much that the bed would shake. I am not kidding. At one point, the thunder clap was so much that the smoke alarm went off twice. To say it's unsettling to attempt to sleep while all of this is going on is an understatement. We kept waiting for Luke to wake up screaming, but somehow, he did not. However, when he woke up at an unprecedented 8 o'clock (we're lucky to make it until 6:30), I asked him if he heard the thunder last night, and he looked at my wide-eyed, grabbed my arm, then put his head on my shoulder. Yeah, I know how you feel, kiddo! So, apparently he did hear it and slept just as poorly as we did, but is somehow braver than I and was able to stay in his crib alone.

I had a hair appointment this morning, and I expected to see tree branches everywhere, judging from the sound of the wind. I did not realize quite how much rain we received, until I had to make three separate detours due to flooding. The worst of it was just down the street from our house, where a large wetland/swamp area is located. Now, the name wetland would lead you to believe that obviously it floods easily, and you would be correct in this belief. I have not, however, seen it flooded this badly. Usually, I'll have to detour in the morning, then I'll be just fine to drive through in the afternoon. This morning, though, there was a car stuck in the middle of it, with a very confused looking man standing next to said car. Seriously, I have two rules about driving through water on the road: If you can't see the road and/or if it's moving quickly, it's not worth chancing it! As it was very clearly both today, I've no idea why this man thought it a fun idea to take his small Pontiac through the water, but he did not make it very far.

When I came home with my story of uber-flooding, Shane dismissed me, reminding me that that area always floods and that it'd be receeded by this afternoon. Unfortuntaly, I missed my opportunity to make a WINNING BET, instead just telling him that we should take our bikes down there after Luke woke up from his nap.

I told Shane to pretend like he was diving in, and as you can see, I would've easily won the bet.

There's a road here, somewhere...

See? Fast moving. Not for cars!


Suffice to say, I think we definitely don't have to worry about a drought.